2008
BOSTON— The casino debate is back on Beacon Hill.
Senate Republicans said yesterday they plan to revive the governor’s proposals to open the state to casino gambling through an amendment to the Senate budget that will be debated next week.
Gov. Deval L. Patrick’s proposal to license three commercial resort casinos was defeated in the House earlier this year by an overwhelming vote to send the issue to a study, which was led by casino opponent House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi.
The casino amendment could result in a vote in the Senate. However, even if it were approved, any such proposal is expected to die in a conference committee that would be set up to work out differences between the House and Senate budget plans.
Still, approval by the Senate could become a strong symbolic vote of support that would give casino backers new hope for eventual passage of casino legislation, especially if there were a change in leadership in the House.
Sen. Michael R. Knapik, R-Westfield, said yesterday that Republicans will introduce the casino amendment for debate as the Ways and Means Committee sends the full Senate a $28.04 billion spending plan for next year that counts on a 3.8 percent increase in revenues. Senate Republican Majority Leader Richard R. Tisei, R-Wakefield, said the amendment would propose approval of the casino plan the governor offered.
Beyond the casino issue, the proposed Senate budget unveiled yesterday calls for a near doubling of the cost of state health insurance subsidies to $869 million. Senate budget leaders said there are
projections that the cost of health insurance subsidies could rise several hundred million dollars more during the next fiscal year. More people than expected are signing up for subsidized health insurance through the state’s Commonwealth Care program.
Ways and Means Chairman Steven C. Panagiotakos, D-Lowell, said the Senate remains uncertain about how much the insurance subsidies could increase through next year. He acknowledged that estimates it could rise as much as $400 million more “remains an area of concern.”
If those higher costs are realized, he said, the state would have to take the additional money out of the $2 billion rainy day reserve fund.
Even without additional health insurance costs, the Senate budget relies on $200 million from the reserve fund, tapping of $91 million in interest from the fund, and eliminating an otherwise scheduled $107 million annual contribution to the reserves.
The Senate budget also depends on $175 million in new cigarette taxes and $297 million in new corporate taxes and closing loopholes as called for in legislation that has been approved separately by the House and Senate, with other differences on a corporate income tax rollback still unresolved between the two branches.
Budget writers are also counting on increased spending on tax collection efforts to bring in another $150 million next year.
Vice Chairman of Ways and Means Stephen M. Brewer, D-Barre, said the Senate budget would also change the name of the state Department of Mental Retardation to the Department of Developmental Disabilities Services. He said the elimination of the word retardation has been sought for many years.
He said the budget also would raise the cost of living adjustment for state pensioners to apply to the first $16,000 of their pension payments, instead of only the first $12,000 that currently is used for COLA increases. Another change would have the state make up the difference to state workers called to active military service, between their regular pay and their military salaries. “People shouldn’t go broke serving their country,” he said.
Mr. Brewer said that would cost about $5 million.
The Senate also concurred with a $10 million allotment approved by the House and sought by the governor to boost statewide homeless programs, as well as an additional $1 million in emergency food assistance for food banks, and $900,000 more for sex offender registry boards.
In addition to a $223 million increase in state aid for local schools, the Senate would allocate $33.8 million for kindergarten expansion grants, and an increase of $5 million for pre-kindergarten grants to local communities. The budget also calls for $61.3 million for regional school transportation, which would cover 87 percent of cost for regional school buses.
Extended school day grants would increase by $4.5 million, allowing longer school days for an additional 3,000 students. State funding for child care for low-income working families would increase by $34 million.
The Senate did not include the governor’s proposal to increase state employee health insurance contributions. Mr. Panagiotakos said the plan was viewed as a pay cut for state workers. The House rejected the higher insurance contributions too.
“We tried hard to do as much as we can with very little. We stretched this money as much as we can,” said Sen. Harriette L. Chandler, assistant vice chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “There are so many needs in this state, and we just can’t meet all of those needs.”
Ms. Chandler, who still fully supports the state’s health care reforms, said the rapidly escalating costs of insurance subsidies should have been expected from the start.
“I think that we didn’t understand that we would have exploding costs when we started - that this was not going to be cheap. I realized it,” she said.
“This is what happens when you say it is a mandate for everyone to be covered. We have got to find cost reductions every place we can or we are going to choke to death on this incredible cost,” she said.
The Senate budget includes $25 million to advance health care cost-saving measures such as wider use of electronic medical records and listing of preferred lower cost prescription drugs. But Ms. Chandler said the savings from those measures will not be realized for one or two years.
“I’m disappointed we have not been able to cut back on the free care pool,” she said of earlier hopes that universal insurance coverage would lower the roughly $500 million the state pays toward hospital costs for poor uninsured people seeking medical treatment. “We haven’t seen it yet,” she said of the savings. “We should be seeing it in the third year. We are going to see people getting preventive health care and not coming in to use the free care pool.”
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